Moment of Truth for the Opposition?

This is typical rhetorical garbage from the National Post calling the opposition and environmentalist's names but it is true that it is time that the opposition stood up for what they supposedly believe and defeat the Conservatives on their environmental posturing. It is better for them to topple the government on this issue than on the many crime bills that they have lined up waiting to pass. Harper is busy lobbying cops to get out their nightsticks and lobby for his crime bills. Better for the opposition to get out their batons and beat the Conservatives on their environmental record. Of course the Liberals may have a bit of a credibility problem on the issue!


Moment of truth for opposition
Now that Kyoto is dead, do parties support new plan?

Don Martin
CanWest News Service


Friday, April 27, 2007



CREDIT: Peter Redman, National Post
Environment Minister John Baird unveils his "Turning the Corner" plan for pollution reduction yesterday in Toronto. The strategy calls for measures to stop the rise in greenhouse gas emissions within five years and cut them by 20% against current levels by 2020.

TORONTO - Let the green scream begin. Kyoto's targets for Canada are dead, the government's revamped clean air act is missing and the Alberta oilsands can expand without risk of suffocation by carbon-cut environmentalism.

But the big question stemming from the Conservatives' greenhouse gas attack released yesterday, which is less aggressive and more loopholed than expected, is whether it will trigger a non-confidence motion by furious opposition parties seizing on the plan as a proof of climate change in government denial.

There was no way the Harper government could win over wildly opposed special interests when it unleashed emission reduction plans against the nation's largest polluters.

So the Conservatives threw out a target -- a three-year, 18% emissions cut that will be hard to achieve for some, easy for others and give the most desperate a pass -- and called it their best compromise.

No imagination was required to predict environmentalists and opposition party critics would unleash a hysterical hissy fit against this, the final obituary for the first phase of emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Better luck in the next round after 2012, apparently.

This plan surrenders to the fact Canada would be unable to meet its treaty obligations without triggering an economic meltdown and proposes an alternative that will please nobody on many fronts.

For starters, it confines the hammer to "intensity" reductions, not a hard-capped cut. The end result would still see Canadian industry achieve actual reductions in a few years, but that won't appease a green movement demanding them immediately.

The price for those forced to buy carbon rights in lieu of curbing their own output has been set at a modest $15 per tonne initially, far below the $30 or so environmentalists demanded.

And then there's the Alberta "breathe easier" amendment, a three-year grace period for oilsands expansion and any other new industry before it has to engage modest curbs in gas output.

Still, this is no oilpatch cakewalk.

Officials said existing oil plants and refineries will be subject to the 6% annual emission rollback, evidently failing to qualify for an escape clause sparing industries from their obligation if meeting them would force a production shutdown.

That's a head scratcher. The plants scoop tar-soaked sand, cook it in gas-fired ovens and separate it into sand and heavy oil. Yet cement kilns -- which scoop limestone and cook it in gas-fired ovens to extract lime and cement -- were singled out for the special exemption.

Officials insisted the oilsands could clean up its act and switch to alternative energy sources (you can't build nuclear power plants overnight, ya know) to meet its targets. It doesn't seem right and they have cause to object, but the oilsands owners might want to get cracking on carbon sequestration pipelines to be safe.

For what my opinion's worth, the plan is the least flawed alternative for a government stuck on a tightrope between end-ofthe- world environmentalists and pivotal industries hooked on carbon discharge.

The economic tab is high-- up to $8 billion in some years -- but instead of the 6.5% plunge in economic output they envisioned under Kyoto, this scheme predicts a 0.5% wrist-slap to the GDP.

The plan's more aggressive hard-cap attack on air pollution fits with the Conservative preference to act for tangible benefits people understand. We see and

breathe air pollution. Greenhouse gases are invisible byproducts of processes like, um, human exhalings.

Are there weaknesses? Absolutely.

For starters, there's that carbon tax, which breaks a solemn Conservative vow to never inflict such an evil concept on Canadians in general and the oilpatch specifically.

There was a lot of denial over that label, of course, but a forced contribution to a technology fund from desperate industries unable to meet their obligations any other way makes that a carbon tax by another name.

Then there's the ongoing blitz of consultations, which used to be a Liberal specialty, before pollution controls and auto sector regulations are imposed. We have been told repeatedly that time for talking is over. So let's get walking.

For the opposition parties, they face a moment of truth. They've sworn allegiance to the Kyoto Protocol as a sacred cow, but the Conservatives have put it out to pasture for at least another 13 years.

They're now confronted by the option to put forward a vote of non-confidence to back up their principles -- or curl up in a fetal position and whimper as their beloved Kyoto turns into a belch of hot Canadian air.

© National Post 2007